


tell me, Atlas

by Anonymous



Series: astralis [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Heyo kids I'm back with some, Introspection, It's 1am and one of those Nights, M/M, Suicide Attempt, mmmmmm, sad shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23567845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Why?" He whispers.Obi-Wan doesn’t answer.Rage floods through him for all of a second and then leaves him dry, empty. Cody sags against Obi-Wan, grabbing fistfulls of his bloody stupid woolen sweater and burying his face in his arm, chanting that one little word under his breath over and over and over.An eternity later, at the end of the universe, Obi-Wan replies, quiet, like the wind rustling through the branches of a tree."I don't really know."
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: astralis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696378
Comments: 11
Kudos: 153
Collections: Anonymous





	tell me, Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since my life went to hell, I've know what it feels like to be in Cody's place; his reactions are very much based off of personal experience. 
> 
> I wrote this in about six hours, running on tea and nebulous thoughts. No beta, so all mistakes are mine. This was, however, written in an extremely precise manner - almost everything in this particular work has a specific meaning and purpose, due to the extremely sensitive nature of this fic.
> 
> The prompt was found by yours truly on Pinterest, and is as follows: "thin blankets, the last autumn leaf on a tree, green eyes with tears".

> _Tell me, Atlas. What is heavier:_
> 
> _The world or its people's hearts?_

“That was stupid.”

Everything is silent for a moment before Obi-Wan answers. It’s a world encapsulated into a few seconds. Outside the window, the neon lights of London don’t quiver, a constant sulfurous orange glow. The cars rush past, white noise in Cody’s ears. The tears slide, hot and heavy, down his face as he heaves in another shuddering breath, the grained surface of the wall digging into his spine for a second. A microcosm in a tiny bubble of time, free-floating and then bursting. 

“I know.” Obi-Wan’s voice is hoarse, clogged with tears.

Cody breathes. In, hold, out, hold. In, hold, out, hold. Repeat, again, like playing his favourite songs over and over. Stuck on a loop; he can't get the memories out, the images, the realisation, the horror, his entire body dropping out, bitter taste flooding his mouth as he yelled out-

“Why.” Cody manages, finally. He feels his entire body shaking. His hands. Heartbeat. It doesn’t feel like his own.

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer.

“Why?” Cody repeats, until the question is a flood of tears and grief and rawness, “Why, why, _why_?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer.

“ _Why_?!” Cody screams, burying his face into his hands in an attempt to stifle it all, hands crawling up over his ears before he drags them down, fingers raking at the back of his neck just to feel _something_ grounding, some form of actual pain that isn’t the dull ache of his heart and the tightness in his chest as he tries to get enough oxygen into his lungs. It’s never enough, his ribs expanding to their limit but still the space is too small. Maybe if he breathes in deep enough, they’ll crack, break open, leaving his heart out for all the world to see.

And yet.

"Why?" He whispers.

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer.

Rage floods through him for all of a second and then leaves him dry, empty. Cody sags against Obi-Wan, grabbing fistfulls of his bloody stupid woolen sweater and burying his face in his arm, chanting that one little word under his breath over and over and over.

An eternity later, at the end of the universe, Obi-Wan replies, quiet, like the wind rustling through the branches of a tree. Barely there, a whispering rattle, gone in a swirl of falling leaves until there's only one left, hanging, solitary, the last vestige of happier times. It too will float away, down, to be trodden into a homogeneous paste with all the others, the lost memories of summer and happier times.

“I don’t really know.”

Cody detaches himself, leaving a single hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder as he turns away, looking up to the skylight. 

You can’t see the stars in the city. In any case, he thinks it’s been a long-time since Obi-Wan saw any stars. He’s been too close to the all-consuming fire that is self-hatred for far too long - he can’t see past its flames anymore. Around it is pitch darkness.

All Cody wants to do is help him up, lead him away by the hand. He just wants to show Obi-Wan the stars.

“Would you like tea?” is what comes out instead.

Obi-Wan looks up at him with empty eyes, glazed over and dull, like a mannequin’s.

“Please.”

Cody sighs and gets up, light-headed and shaky. He holds a hand out to Obi-Wan. The other man stares at it, then looks up at Cody, who gives him a weak smile. Obi-Wan takes his hand and allows himself to be hauled to his feet. He totters, like a newborn colt, on trembling legs and collapses against Cody's side.

"Do you want to wait here for a bit or come with me?"

The other man stares at him, eyes green in the mellow lamplight. Green like summer leaves and suddenly shining with unshed tears; a glassy stasis, dew on verdure. It makes Cody all too aware of the crusty, drying tracks on his face. 

Obi-Wan blinks. A drop falls down, onto his cheek. A single droplet that stirs the seemingly calm surface of a riptide. He brushes it away with a shaking hand and it's gone.

"I," Obi-Wan swallows, lips pressing together for a brief moment "I'd prefer to go with you."

Cody nods silently and wraps an arm around Obi-Wan's shoulders.

"Come on then," Cody steers them down two flights of stairs to the ground floor, where the kitchen is. Obi-Wan is clearly lethargic, leaning nearly all of his weight on Cody, who tries not to notice that he's not actually that heavy, even though his arms are still shaking from the effort. Or maybe the stress, residual adrenaline pumping through his blood, setting him on edge, still in danger.

In danger of losing Obi-Wan, he realises belatedly. He doesn't _understand-_

They wobble into the kitchen and Cody gently pushes Obi-Wan into the armchair they set up in the corner. It's the warmest room in the house, for some reason, and Obi-Wan is somewhat like a cat, always attracted to the warmest place. The older man immediately curls up in the plush softness of the armchair, drawing his knees up to his chin, eyes following Cody glassily.

"Wait here a second," Cody walks out of the kitchen and takes the stairs two at a time into the first floor corridor, where they have their airing cupboard. He roots around in it for some blankets; the best he can find is some thin tartan monstrosities that he remembers from their university days. They'll do.

He runs down the stairs and back into the kitchen a little too fast, judging by the wide, guilty and hunted look in Obi-Wan's eyes.

"Do you really think I'd try again?" 

Cody stops in the middle of the kitchen. Swallows. The world tilts again and his heart is too loud in his ears. 

"Obi-Wan-"

"Well," Obi-Wan laughs, an ugly sound, the last, haunted rattle of the wind through bare branches, "Don't worry, since apparently I can't even bloody kill myself _once_ I don't think it'll happen a second time."

Cody doesn't move, the blankets hanging limp in his hands.

He doesn't know what to say, what to do. The words don't come out of his mouth.

He just. Stands there.

The seconds crawl by, agonised, bloody, broken.

Obi-Wan heaves a shallow sigh.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, voice like shattered glass, all sparkling sharp edges and bleeding mouth, "I'm so, so _sorry_."

"It's okay." Cody manages. Takes a step forward. Then another, and another, until he's collapsing in front of Obi-Wan on the linoleum floor. The blankets end up in Obi-Wan's lap with Cody's arms and head.

They stay like that for several minutes until Cody pulls away, a little bleary-eyed.

"I should make that tea," he slurrs, blinking at the sudden influx of light. He catches the tail end of a fleeting smile on Obi-Wan's lips.

"Indeed."

Cody sighs, rubbing at his eyes as he stumbles over to the counter to check the amount of water in the kettle. There's enough for two cups so he flicks it on. He fetches their two favourite mugs from the cupboard above the stove - the huge, stained and slightly chipped one from nearly two decades ago, with dancing cats on it, for Obi-Wan and the gag mug, the one that Rex got him so many years ago, for himself. Then, he digs through multiple packets of the disgusting herbal tea that Obi-Wan likes (liked, he stopped drinking tea some time ago, around when he stopped eating and drinking and sleeping properly) to find that one packet of Tetley's sleep easy, that one with valerian root which doesn't actually help with Obi-Wan's insomnia - but calms him down into a sort of doze.

 _How had I missed that?_ he realises guiltily. _And all those other little signs that showed that things weren't getting better?_

There's a smear of white powder on his finger. He stares at it for longer than he really wants to, fascinated by the way the white granules cling to the grooves of his fingertips. Still staring at it, he turns the tap on and watches the last traces wash away.

Abruptly breaking out of his... _trance,_ he turns the tap off and dries his hands with the flannel towel, idly noting that it needs to be put in the laundry. He picks up the packets of tea and fishes two teabags out before dumping them in the mugs, urging the kettle to hurry up. 

Having something to do should keep his mind off whatever just happened. He's still not quite done processing it all. He doesn't think he ever will be. 

Instead, he's hyperfixating on making tea, compartmentalising everything to torture himself over later while staring wide-eyed at the tiles of the shower, water running too-hot and useless down his back.

It doesn't change the fact that he loves the broken soul curled up in the armchair, with shattered wings that will need to be nurtured and loved to help them grow back.

The water finally boils and he snatches the kettle up, hissing a little as some of it spills out of the spout and onto the countertop. He pours it out into the cups, watching the green-grey colour of the tea start to swirl like mist inside them, a storm inside a teacup, except not quite.

The glass, still half full with water, stands by the sink. Cody tips the water out and sets the glass back down with a clunk that's startlingly loud in the semi-silence. He makes a mental note to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Arthur, their cat, meows petulantly from behind him. It's an odd, jarringly familiar sound. Still the same old meow, despite the world being knocked askew, wrong somehow, tinted argent and shades of blue.

Obi-Wan makes a soft crooning noise and Arthur runs up to him with a soft _mrrp?_ that turns into loud purring as Obi-Wan cards his fingers through the reddish fur on Arthur's back.

"Thank you," he mumbles as Cody hands him his mug, taking his hand off Arthur's back to cradle the mug with both hands. Cody tucks the blankets over him and settles down on a chair opposite him.

"Think you can sleep?" He asks.

Obi-Wan shrugs and takes another ship of his tea.

"We could watch something mindless. I think they've got _The Chase_ on." 

Obi-Wan makes a small, non-committal sound.

"Does that sound good?"

The other man eventually nods, if a little haltingly.

"Should I take the blankets or the tea?"

"Tea, probably," Obi-Wan says, voice still hoarse, holding out his mug. Cody takes it and waits for him to get up, clutching the blankets to his chest, and start shuffling towards the living room before following him out, using his nose to nudge the light switch off.

He sets the mugs down on the table, and settles down next to Obi-Wan on the sofa, taking the remote control out from under himself to switch the TV on to ITV. 

Sure enough, _The Chase_ is indeed on, excuse the pun. It's suitably mindless, Bradley Walsh being his usual dirty-minded, giggly self. It's not actually that funny, really. Never is. Obi-Wan tends to watch it if he can't sleep, claiming that it "kills off all of his remaining brain cells".

Initially, they sit a few centimetres apart, which feels like miles to Cody. Eventually, though, Obi-Wan slowly leans into him and Cody takes that as an invitation to swing an arm around his shoulders and pull him in close with a kiss to the temple. Somehow, they still slot together, pieces in a jigsaw.

Minutes later, Obi-Wan is asleep.

Cody sighs again, brushing that slightly ridiculous, floppy, dirty-blond hair back from his forehead, which makes Obi-Wan frown and squirm a little.

He digs the remote control out and turns the TV off, grateful for the silence, then scoops Obi-Wan up into his arms and starts for the stairs, feet sinking into the fuzzy blue carpet under their shared weight.

Two flights of stairs up, he sets the sleeping man down onto their bed with another kiss to the cheek and a brush of fingers, then sets about undressing him somewhat. He gets Obi-Wan's tracksuit bottoms and socks off before he gives up, leaving him in his - well, it was Cody's, but eventually transferred ownership to Obi-Wan - t-shirt and underwear. Another two minutes and he's in his pyjama bottoms, climbing up into bed beside Obi-Wan, slinging an arm and leg around him and curling in close.

He breathes in that soft smell of spice - Obi-Wan loves, or rather loved, the stuff, after all - cologne and something inexplicably _Obi-Wan_ , mellow and alluring, tinted gold around the edges, like vellichor; and somehow falls asleep.

> _'Death, where is thy sting?' And as he went down deeper, he said, 'Grave, where is thy victory?'_

**Author's Note:**

> Quote at the end from "Valiant for Truth" by John Bunyan  
> My love to y'all and stay safe, you guys!


End file.
